


Falling

by DearlyStar



Series: Moments to Nowhere [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Feels, Humor, Love, Marauders, Marauders era, Marriage, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Poetic James, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Wedding Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearlyStar/pseuds/DearlyStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She holds out a glass of champagne, and I accept it, sliding my hand over hers. She smiles at me, that last-light-of-evening-on-a-summer-night smile. She's still all long angles, collarbone showing, her nose a little too pointed.</p><p>And she's mine."</p><p>James has a moment of clarity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

It was in that moment that it hit me.

I mean, really, truly hit me. Hit me like a hippogryph who’s been called every name in the goddamn book. Hit me like the first time I ever looked directly at the sun.

It wasn’t during the ceremony. Not when she floated, radiant, up the aisle toward me. I couldn’t think about anything while that was happening. Not during the vows, or our ring exchange, or when the flower garland decorating the ceiling burst into live fluttering white songbirds (Lily has always been excellent at charms).

It was in that moment, between the punch bowl and the cake table, covered in streamers, with antlers sprouted from my head. Sirius was practically on the ground laughing. Remus was grinning, Peter had punch coming out of his nose. I was having a good laugh myself. I looked across the pavilion.

And there she was. 

My wife.

She’s laughing uproariously at something. Probably me. The glow of the hovering chandeliers lights her up like the softest place to land I've ever seen. The simple white dress makes her hair wildfire. Stray strands are coming loose around her temples, softening her even more than the light. I watch her glide over to me, drinks in hand, and I feel a stupid grin plastered firmly on my face. I can't stop smiling today. My cheeks hurt.

Just as my wife reaches me (my wife. My wife. This is just the best), Padfoot sends more conjured streamers in gold and scarlet over my head with a bang and a puff of violently yellow smoke. They gently settle over my head, and in my newly grown antlers. Lily giggles as more people join Sirius in audible mirth. Even McGonagall, across the room chatting with Lily’s parents, breaks into a wide smile, shaking her head before returning to their conversation. “There seems to be something caught in your crown, husband,” Lily chortles, reaching up to flick a streamer from a prong. “Quite magnificent. Twelve points. You’d make an excellent roast for our guests.” Her eyes dance with glee. “I'll have quite enough of being roasted once Sirius gives his speech,” I grumble, not entirely unhappily. She holds out a glass of champagne, and I accept it, sliding my hand over hers. She smiles at me, that last-light-of-evening-on-a-summer-night smile. She's still all long angles, collarbone showing, her nose a little too pointed.

And she's mine.

I slip an arm around her waist. If I could, I would pull her right up inside me, until we both light up the world. In the soft light of the floating candles, she's some kind of beautiful that I can't even place. She reaches up and pulls the rest of the streamers out of my antlers. “I think they’re a vast improvement,” I hear her say vaguely to Sirius over my shoulder. “You should definitely keep them,” she quips at me. I hardly hear her voice over my own brain, buzzing with ecstatic joy. I down the champagne Lily’s handed me, grab her by the waist and spin her out onto the dance floor without another word, shoving her glass at a guffawing Padfoot. 

I dig my fingers into her waist, feeling the warmth and the softness over the bones. The lace frames her freckled shoulders, her neck. She catches me staring, and chuckles as I move her around the floor. I never wanted to thank my mother for anything half so much as those dance lessons I loathed when I was younger. With a small pressure on my overshined shoes, I feel her accidentally step on my toes. Lily glances up. I deadpan at her for the slightest moment before lifting her into the air. She lets out a surprised squeak that turns into a laugh. 

My wife. My beautiful, airborne wife. I hold her up and twirl her; if I let her go she will float away, like she is the moon and I want her above me so I can worship the beams issued from her. She laughs. The sound fills me and bursts the edges of my body, igniting and expanding the air in my lungs until it issues a joyful sound to match hers.

I'm very distantly aware that everyone has circled us, watching as we burn circles into the dance floor with our footsteps, sweeping, her dress flaring and catching the light. I realize that there wasn't music when we started, but there is now. It's matching us, move for move, a close echo to the masterpiece we’re composing between us. 

We aren't slow people, Lily and I. We live fast, love hard, dance madly and hold dearly. We blur through our existence with blazing colors and loud laughter. Minute to minute, we are alive, awake, feeling the ice cold and the burning hot, each sensation and emotion with its own time, it's own place. A haze of fear and passion, with smears of lust and stitches of strength, all wrapped in circumstances outside our control. 

But Lily is above them all. She stands at the gate of our future, in a simple white dress and a smile that could smash reality into splinters and glittering grit that will outshine the stars. And I am the fool standing next to her, staring down that void of unknown and unknowing depth, knowing we are jumping into it. And I care even less about that than I do about the antlers that I recently acquired. We’re falling hopelessly, and the tide is coming in, sweeping and swirling and uncertain and dangerous.

But we’re falling together.


End file.
